When All Time Stood Still
by Alexandra P. Useless
Summary: Mortimer Toynbee pays a deadly price for playing the part of a good samaritan. [ Now with a Sequal: You Deserve Flowers ]


**... I'm sorry.**

** None of this is mine. All belongs to other people, but not me. **_  
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_Stupid bitch._

Her body fell limply against his, descending like a fking angel into his arms. Her hair plastered his sweat-soaked face, smelling in a sickly way of raspberries. He had barely the time to glance at her face before parrying a blow from the drunken bastard whom he had found with his hands upon her exposed chest. Another fist, directed by one more sober than the first, connected agonizingly with his jaw with such force that he nearly dropped the precious bundle in his arms. He retaliated with a belch of slime, plastering two of his three assailants to the wall. The third fell shortly afterward, clutching at his damaged rib cage, courtesy of a well aimed kick.

_Now…_

He staggered from the ransacked call girl's room, barely acknowledging the illusive reason as to why the weather witch had been here; It didn't matter.

His shirt was soaked in blood, a fact that gave him reason to hasten in his steps. Few of the bar inhabitants raised a brow or flickered a lash as he strode through the dim tavern, less still bothered to obstruct his flight. Most were too inebriated even to acknowledge the shock of white hair fluttering from the crook of his arm.

She was muttering mutedly beneath her breath as they left out the back door, shivering in his arms, delicate as a china doll. "Stupid assed bitch," he muttered, none-too gentle as he deposited her into the seat beside him in a worn Ford Pickup.

The engine fought madly against him in protest before finally sputtering to life. His foot touched the gas pedal to the floor, calling a sharp whine from bellow the hood before the forsaken vehicle was able to tear out of the tavern parking lot.

With the bar vanishing rapidly in the rearview mirror, he felt a bit of ease, absently placing a hand on the blood cached head of the drowsy X-man. She flinched under his touch, moaning eerily. She was curled up where he had dropped her, her head resting again his knee. He knew he would have to stop some where to examine what ever wound was responsible for so much blood… The girl would be no use if she wasn't breathing. At least, that was the excuse he gave himself for the concern nibbling away at his conscience.

The tavern was little more than a rode side distraction for truckers and lowlifes working the high way. The problem being they were even remotely close to a highly populated area - Like the highway. He swore - _I didn't ask for this._

.o.

Close by

.o.

Logan offered no lenience to the speed limit, speeding blindly past law abiding citizens in their vehicles. An ear-to-ear smile had spread across his husky face, displaying his passion for Scott's underused motorcycle. The machine growled with feral brutality at the slower, clumsier four-wheeled vehicles. Logan agreed - Sucks to cars. What with the exhilaration of a 140 mph ride, he nearly forgot his mission, nearly let the professor's words slip lazily from his mind; Find her.

Storm had left only a week ago - An expanse of time Logan hardly thought significant enough to arouse concern, but Xavier knew her better than he, as did the dickhead, Scott. Already, the ruby-visored man and the blue mutant, Kurt, were tearing across the sky, traveling to the latest coordinates that Xavier had provided through Cerebro. Logan was traveling that way himself, but with his super-enhanced scents doing the better part of the tracking. Scott's coordinates were a whole twenty four hours old, leading to what Xavier believed was a pub. God knew what the fair headed woman was doing there.

She had left when the memory of Jean had grown too painful for her to bear. Logan felt the familiar, painful tug in his chest. _Jeanie._ He shook away the wisps of sadness. Apparently, Ororo rarely left the Professor's side… An now she'd been gone a whole week, obviously grieving.

Logan's mind suddenly snapped back to reality, having received a hearty jolt as his senses suddenly detected… Blood? He slowed the bike, thankful for the beam of light that shot through the night air and falling snowflakes. Yes, the sharp and repulsive scent of blood was heavy on the wind, assaulting his nostrils and sending him into his deepest and most primitive mode. The bike became a serpent on the snow covered road, gliding at dangerous speeds towards the source of blood, the source of fear.

.o.

A bit before

.o.

The weather witch cried out painfully, jerking in her unconscious state. Blood had taken to her lips, and Toad looked down uneasily. Sweat flecked her brow and plastered the fair locks of hair to her forehead. He averted his eyes for a moment from the road so that he could lift her head and carefully lay it in his lap, where he stroked her cheeks comfortingly. Her movement would only make help the bleeding to progress.

"Lay still, witch." Despite the harsh words, his voice was soft and gentle, almost angelic with the British slur. She was heedless, nonetheless, and twisted away, crying out in anguish as the cramped space of the car impeded her movement. A fresh flow of blood was clearly visible through the browning material of her once white shirt. Mort swore, pulling the truck over and opening the door. He was met by a relieving blast of night air, cooling his aching body, which had gotten it's fair share of battering in his attempts to preserve the x-man's life.

Snow flakes whirled about his face as he slid the woman's ravaged body from the truck, leaving the lights on so that he could see properly. He lay her on the ground on the other side of the vehicle, stretching her out upon his trench coat to keep her from the snow the best he could. The cold was already setting in on him, destroying his concentration.

The weather witch's clothing was badly torn in obvious places, revealing beneath perfectly tanned flesh. She was, indeed, beautiful, as Victor had described her. He nearly gave into a man's instincts as he touched the bruising skin, but stayed his hand from straying - It would have been a fatal mistake, were she to awake. Instead, he probed, without lust, under her shirt for the source of blood, staring all the time at her face for signs of pain. He found the groove in the skin within seconds, just catching his finger from sinking into the wound. It was right bellow the right side of her right ribcage, and oozing warmth over his fingertips. He needed to move fast.

With well trained hands, he pulled an assassin's dagger from his boot and swiftly began to slice into the folds of his trench coat, still stretched out on the ground. _She'll owe me a new jacket after this bit,_ he mused. Half of his jacket had soon turned into four, long strips. He then turned back to the x-man, apprehensive of his task, as he knew his self control would be harshly strained here. As quickly as he could, he slipped the blade up beneath the seam of her shirt and lifted, coaxing the threads to part away from each other. The seem gave, and the shirt fell away from her torso, leaving her bare chest exposed to his widened eyes. She was a very liberal creature, headless of the boundaries most women chose for themselves. He forced himself to look away, lifting her gently so that he could wrap the first of the make-shift bandages around her lovely upper half. And then it happened

At his well intentioned touch, her eyes flew open, instantly spotting his unforgettable face. Drowsy and yet panicked by the sight of the murderous mutant, she screamed, shoving away from his and kicking savagely at his unprotected belly. Mort, by reflex caught the already weakened blow with his forearm, reaching out with the other to restrain her from further movement. "Easy, witch!" He pulled her back to him, attempting to calm her thrashing limbs, in retaliation, she raked a set of nails across his left cheek, four strips of blood, from just below his left eye, to the edge of his jaw. He cursed, unable to touch the painful marks as both his hands were occupied by the writhing girl. "Just lie still!"

Her eyes had grown opaque, by now, but rumbles of thunder were little more than what she could muster as she lost more and more blood by the second. The snow had begun to whirl harder though, mother nature calling to them both, her voice wailing to them from the wind, promising hell before the night was through. Toad paid no heed, now focused only on calming the hysterical x-man.

.o.

These events lead us to…

.o.

Logan stopped the bike forty meters from where he believed the scent of blood was originating from, his claws instinctively straining to extend from his skin and start dismembering. His foot steps, those of a predator, became light and agile, their sound muffled by the compiled snow.

There were no cars on the road, despite it's being a well-know high way. He supposed the weather had forced many roads to shut down - There'd be no one to witness a full fledged battle. His eyes searched out the snow-covered asphalt stretching out before him, searching for something, _anything_, to suggest where the coppery smell was emitting from.

_There._

Not twenty feet away were a set of lights, truck lights, lying dormant beside the road. The crimson glow muffled by the falling snow, shone with awesome clarity to him - _Look here_. He drew closer, feeling anger well in his chest as his eyes began to perceive.

It was Ororo, bare topped, bloodied, bruised, and thrashing wildly about in the arms of none other than the frog prince from Magneto's crew. The murderer had wrapped his slimy arms around her torso, and was forcing her back to the ground, where Logan could only guess what would next be carried out. He could see, distinctly, welts and bruises having already formed on the frog-man, too, and four bleeding cuts stretching across his face - Ororo, obviously had put up a hellofafight. But she was weakening, and now he began to run, restraining a roar of anger to preserve the element of surprise.

.o.

At the same time.

.o.

She was calming, thank God, or perhaps weakening, under his grasp. Her blood was covering his shirt, and staining the snow. She continued, however, to jab him in any way possible, likely unaware that most of her blows fell upon the painful remainders the drunks in the tavern had left on him when he had saved her life.

"Lie still, witch, this will take only a minute." His words completely harmless, as the readers well know, were intercepted by the wrong set of ears.

_Sknit._

Pain pierced through Mort's chest, and he felt himself lifted off the ground as a gasp shuddered from his lungs. He looked down to this new source of pain, his eyes widening as he observed three gleaming blades protruding from just below where his heart would have been. He recognized, even in the blinding pain, the same claws that had skewered Mystique. "Wolverine," he gasped, blood already upon his lips. His captor leaned down to snarl into his ear, his breath warming the nape of Mort's neck. "You picked the wrong bitch to bang, bub."

The claws receded, and Mort was suddenly lying on the ground, struggling for breath before a boot suddenly jammed into his belly, shoving the air from his lungs. A second _sknit, _and the deadly blades flew at him again. Mort didn't posses the strange to dodge. The addimantium pierced his chest once again, through skin and bone. He felt his lungs filling with foreign substances, and tasted blood in his throat. His next breath evaded him.

The Wolverine didn't spare him a second glance.

.o.

And back to Logan's point of view.

.o.

Logan left the Toad struggling for breath on the snowy ground without a second thought - He deserved worse fates than what he was getting.

He scooped the dieing Ororo up off the ground, fumbling with the buttons on his cell phone before - "Scotty? Yeah, I found her, 'bout twenty miles North of your location. Get over here quick." He gave brief coordinates, and hung up the phone, wrapping Ororo gently in the bloodied jacket the frog had left her sprawling on. "You're gonna be fine, 'Ro."

The jet was there in seconds, and Scott swept the wounded team mate on board, whilst Logan gruffly filled him in on the particulars.

Kurt slipped of the jet, his glowing eyes trained on the body of the young man that had nearly taken the life of his love. The Toad, as the called him, lay, half submerged in the snow, breathing his last. Kurt knelt beside him, touching his brow gently. The life was leaving him, and Kurt saw no way to avoid death. As trained by the words of the bible, and his solemn beliefs, he was able only to pity the dieing creature before him. He dipped a finger into the man's blood, whispering prayers from the Psalms as he preformed the cross over the mutant's body. "May God forgive you." Saying this, he left his rosary upon the Toad's bloodied chest, bowing his head as he turned to leave.

He walked up the ramp, which promptly closed behind them. The jet soon became a streak in the night sky, and all was silent.

.o.

And for the end…

.o.

Mortimer lay, unbelieving, in the snow, shivering as he gasped blood. He would die, here, beneath a starless sky, with the blessings of a mutant fool. The rosary seemed heavy on his chest, but he couldn't will his arms to shove it away.

_Is this it, then? _He wondered, feeling the blood rise through his throat and into his lungs. _Am I finally to rest?_

And with those final thoughts, quite by himself, he closed his eyes, and departed for the heavens… On a sacred night, when all time stood still.


End file.
